Tall Tales from the USA Paul Bunyan

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Tall Tales from the USAPaul Bunyan
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• A little background
• The best known folk hero of the Northwoods is
  the giant lumberjack, Paul Bunyan. A product of
  rugged humor, wit and spontaneous exaggeration,
  his 'legend' was created in the bunkhouses of
  ordinary logging camps, by ordinary working men,
  while they gathered around the glowing woodstoves
  on cold winter evenings. It was from there that
  stories about Paul and Babe spread throughout the
  pine shanties of Michigan, Wisconsin, and
  Minnesota.

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The Birth of Paul Bunyan

• It took five giant storks, working overtime, to
  deliver him to his parents. Three hours after his
  birth he was reported to weigh a full eighty
  pounds and they used a lumber wagon drawn by a
  team of oxen as a baby carriage. His baby voice
  was described as 'sort of a cross between a buzz
  saw and a bass drum'.

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• He grew so fast that after one week he had to
  wear his father's clothes. He would eat forty
  bowls of porridge just to whet his appetite. His
  lungs were so strong that he could empty a whole
  pond of frogs with one "holler".

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• It is said that Paul Bunyan dug the Great Lakes
  and scratched out the Grand Canyon. His
  footprints became our smaller lakes. He could log
  an entire forest with one sweep of his axe.

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Pauls Big Blue Ox, Babe

• Paul rescued Babe, as a calf, from drowning
  during the Winter of Blue Snow. Babe grew to be
  twenty-four axe handles and a plug of tobacco
  wide between the eyes and as a snack would eat
  thirty bales of hay...wire and all. Babe was so
  strong that he could pull anything that had two
  ends. It is said that it took a crow a full day
  to fly from the tip of one horn to the other.
  Paul once used Babe to straighten out thirty
  miles of crooked town road. When all the twists
  and curves were pulled straight there were an
  extra twelve miles of road left over. Paul rolled
  it all up and gave it back to the town to use
  elsewhere.

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• The tales of Paul Bunyan were invented by
  lumberjacks. During all their time spent cutting
  trees they told stories. Paul Bunyan was somebody
  that they made up to explain in humorous ways how
  our lakes, hills, and canyans were made.